Archive for the ‘Antifa’ Category

You’ve probably heard a slew of radicalizing terms being tossed around the last couple of weeks in an attempt to label the various ideologies we’re seeingin the news.So, whatdoes Antifa believe?Experts interviewed by the New York Times, among others, help explain the roots and the beliefs of the alt-left movement.

To back up, last week, President Donald Trump placed blameon the so-called alt-left and its neighbors for the events in Charlottesville as well as the alt-right. There was reportedly alsoa petition to recognize Antifa as a terrorist organization, according to several right-wing outlets. But this is far from a fair (or accurate) parallel.

According to the Oxford Dictionary online, Antifa is a shortening for antifascists, which itdefines as,

A radical political movement that opposes fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing authoritarianism.

Antifascismhas its roots in pre-WWII Europe, when the trifecta of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco were pushing fascism forward. A battle between British fascists and an opposition forcein 1936 led to a trend of opposition, asTime reported.

Many trace theterm Antifa’s coinage back to the 1970s and ’80s duringa resurgence of clashes between fascism and itsopponents in the U.S. and Europe, Mother Jones reports.

Whereas many left-leaning people careabout combattingracism, Antifa seems to take that term literally.

Writing for The Washington Post, historian Mark Bray explains Antifa as the militant far-left generally made up of communists, socialists, and anarchists who fight the far-right rather than leave the fate of racismup to the state. Above all, Antifa is an ideology dedicated to ousting and fighting white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and fascism, as well asending racism, often through confrontational means.

Mark Pitcavage, an analyst for the Anti-Defamation League, told the New York Timesthat the primary goal of Antifa is tophysically confrontand pickfights with their far-rightopponents.

[Antifa are] illilberal. They don’t believe in society as a value neutral public sphere where any kind of ideas can just float around.

Not really, according to experts interviewed in the New York Times. The size and organization of Antifa members now is much smaller than their fascist opponents, and in general, they tend to be responsible for far less violence.Putting Antifa on the same playing field as neo-Nazism is a false equivalence, the experts explained.

(While we’re on the topic of incorrectly drawn parallels,Pitcavage said that alt-left is another false equivalence, and is in fact a made-up term.)

This brief, brief summary isn’t all you need to know, but hopefully enough to understand why equivocating Antifa and neo-Nazism leads to so many Twitter wars.

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Hannah is a news writer for Elite Daily, a sitcom aficionado and a firm believer in the powers of coffee and chocolate.

So, Boston Antifa threw rocks, hurled bottles, and splashed urine on police. The protests turned violent. That is a fact; Guy has a post on it here. Yet, to fully show how unhinged this movement is, just take a look at one of their Facebook pages. Lets take a look at the Boston Antifa page since theyre probably going to be the flavor of the week. Apparently, any person who is not like them isnt allowed in Boston.

There is no room for capitalists, conservatives, libertarians, “classical liberals” or supporters of the US constitution in our city. You MUST leave.

Antifa wants supporters of the Constitution and classical liberals out of the city; thats like everyone. So, they fight the Ku Klux Klan, but they have the same ethos regarding who is allowed to stay and who needs to go. Also, who the hell do they think they are? Oh, and over the weekend, the great comedian Jerry Lewis of The Nutty Professor, The Bellboy, and Whos Minding The Store? passed away at the age of 91. To go back even further, theres the string of films he did with the late Dean Martin when the two were a comedy act. He was a renowned comedian, some might have found his slapstick a bit much, but he was a talented performer who also raised money and awareness for muscular dystrophy. Well, to these far left bullies, hes an evil man who embraced white supremacy. Im not kidding:

The lonely comedian behind his facade was a man who harbored a lot of misplaced hate and his career is nothing to idolize.

Jerry Lewis embraced the power of white supremacy throughout his career. People who found comedy in his “jokes” and characters portraying POC stereotypes are as much to blame for why we continue to deal with this situation in 2017.

Unsafe humor, as well as many problematic comics of today who were inspired from Jerry (Gilbert Gottfried for example), should be given no further platform and no praise. Let the memory of an old bigot like Jerry fade away forever.

Do they fight Nazis, white nationalists, and the KKK? Yes, but that doesnt mean theyre the good guys.

Even those who despise neo-Nazis are worried about the rise of the antifa, the masked protesters whose stock rose after they took on white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The antifa, which stands for anti-fascists, may be the sworn enemies of Nazism and racism, but the radical left-wing protesters also arent fans of the First Amendment, having shut down scheduled speeches by conservatives Milo Yiannapoulos and Ann Coulter earlier this year in Berkeley, California.

Thats by design. The guiding principle behind the movement, which has its roots in prewar Europe, is to defeat fascists before they can gain a foothold in government and society in order to avoid another Nazi Germany.

If that means using threats, intimidation and even violence to muzzle so-called fascists, then so be it, said Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which is scheduled for release Sept. 12.

Antifa are anarchists and communists and socialists who are revolutionaries and dont have any inherent regard for the law, said Mr. Bray, a visiting scholar at the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth College. To try to put it within that framework is kind of missing the fact that they dont really care.

He pointed to the millions of deaths throughout history from fascist groups, saying that members of antifa consider their efforts to be self-defense against Nazis.

Critics of antifa describe the movement as fascist in its own right given its disregard for the First Amendment and willingness to use mobs and the hecklers veto to shush dissenting voices.

It is important for the public to understand that the so-called antifa are not well-intentioned bystanders engaged in civil discourse, but armed thugs intent on silencing their opponents, said Mark Pulliam, a lawyer and contributor to conservative publications. The First Amendment was intended to protect debate and the free market of ideas, not to give a weapon to one side to suppress the other.

Even Richard Cohen, president of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which routinely lists mainstream conservative groups alongside the Ku Klux Klan on its hate map, has raised alarm about the antifa.

I think its a spectacularly bad idea to give one group of people the right to silence another group of people, Mr. Cohen said Sunday on Meet the Press. Its contrary to our values embodied in the First Amendment. Its likely to drive the people they are trying to censor underground, where they may resort to illegal means to express themselves like bombs.

In the wake of World War II, however, Mr. Bray said one of the lessons was that fascists could have been stopped if more people had resisted them early on.

The anti-fascist side is to look at how it was that fascist and Nazi groups gained power back in the 20s and 30s, and one of the lessons theyve taken out of it is that a lot of people werent sufficiently alarmed early enough they werent taken seriously enough until it was too late, Mr. Bray said. And so the argument [is] that you dont let them take that first step toward being normalized.

You also dont have to be a card-carrying Nazi to be considered a fascist. Anyone who falls to the right of the political spectrum is apparently fair game, including the Multnomah County Republican Party, which was threatened by antifa rioting that ultimately forced the cancellation of the annual rose parade in April.

Anti-fascists arent only against fascists, Mr. Bray said. Theyre basically against the far right in general.

Does the antifa consider President Trump a fascist? Some would say yes and some would say no, but there is a sort of broad agreement that he enables them [fascists], and that he has fascistic qualities, Mr. Bray said.

And he definitely does, from my perspective, have fascistic qualities, even though I wouldnt consider him a fascist in the full sense, he said.

What about Hillary Clinton?

Theyre opposed to her, too. But its not like they apply the same tactics to a Democratic Party event as they would to a Traditionalist Worker Party event, which is a fascist group, Mr. Bray said.

A former Occupy Wall Street organizer, Mr. Bray said he isnt part of the antifa movement, but he was able to conduct extensive interviews with anonymous antifa activists by agreeing to speak to them by phone or on encrypted message boards.

The only reason I managed to get any interviews is I have a lot of connections through doing left-radical work for 15 years, and even with that, there are groups where no one would talk to me because theres a high level of paranoia about law enforcement and fascist backlash, he said. They just dont want information out there that can be used against them or [to uncover] their identity.

Antifa protesters resist being interviewed during protests, avoiding or ignoring reporters who try to interview them. One antifa activist was accused of punching Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for The Hill newspaper, during the Charlottesville melee after she refused to stop recording the event.

David Horowitz, conservative author and expert on left-wing movements, said one problem with the reasoning behind antifa is that actual American fascists such as neo-Nazis are negligible, irrelevant groups on the political scene whose membership has been in decline for years.

In Charlottesville more than 1,000 protesters, including the antifa, turned out to counter a Unite the Right crowd estimated at 250 to 500.

The antifa is a real threat. This alt-right crap at a national gathering they had 500 people. Thats nothing. Its laughable, Mr. Horowitz said. Its a bogeyman invented by the left to justify its anti-democratic agenda. And people are too intimidated.

The problem, Mr. Bray said, is that sometimes fascists dont always disappear. Certainly you can ignore them, and sometimes they go away, but the fact that sometimes they dont is the concern, he said, citing the recent rise of fascism in Greece.

Certainly the antifa won the public relations battle in Charlottesville. Not only was an alleged neo-Nazi arrested for driving into a crowd, killing a woman and injuring at least 19, but prominent left-wing academic Cornel West later credited the antifa with saving him and others.

The police, for the most part, pulled back, Mr. West told Democracy Now! The next day, for example, those 20 of us who were standing, many of them clergy, we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists who approached over 300, 350 anti-fascists. We just had 20.

After Charlottesville, Mr. Bray said, the threat that fascists and neo-Nazis pose is a lot more evident to people than it was previously, albeit for tragic reasons.

I think people are really mad and frustrated and more sympathetic toward these confrontational tactics and dealing with them [fascists], Mr. Bray said, so I think, in that sense, its opened more space for people to consider it or at least understand it.

Mr. Horowitz warned people to beware the antifa movement. They are the fascists. What other group in America is running around trying to shut down people from speaking by violent methods and defaming them at the same time? he asked. Thats what fascism is.

‘Antifa’ Group to Train for Clashes With White Nationalists in Trump’s ‘AmeriKKKa’

Antifa Website Calls for Violence Against Trump Supporters

A petition to label the anti-Trump group “Antifa” a terrorist organization sped past the requirement of 100,000 signatures needed to get a response from the White House.

The petitionsays Antifa’s “violent actions in multiple cities and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers throughout the United States” earns it the terrorist designation.

“It is time for the pentagon to be consistent in its actions,” the petition reads. “Just as they rightfully declared ISIS a terror group, they must declare AntiFa a terror group on the grounds of principle, integrity, morality, and safety.”

Democrat Fundraising Is Worst in a Decade

Watters: Destroying Historical Monuments Is What the Taliban Does

The petition was started Thursday and by Monday morning the petition had garnered over 146,000 signatures.

Antifa has embraced violence as part of their protests of the Trump administration and conservative principles. On President Trump’s inauguration day in Washington, D.C., Antifa protesters ransacked the city, smashing windows and setting cars on fire.

In their efforts to drive political opponents from the public square, self-described anti-fascists (or antifa) are utilizing a disgusting and degrading weapon: human urine.

In just the latest instance of weaponized urine, counter-protesters demonstrating against a free speech rally in Boston on Saturday flung urine-filled bottles at police officers trying to maintain order amidst an already tense political climate.

The Boston Police Department sent out a message on Twitter urging demonstrators not to assault officers with urine, but its unclear if it had any effect. Boston Police Commissioner William Evans stated at a press conference later that day that protesters successfully hit officers with their urine-filled projectiles.

Im sorry to report that we did have some bottles thrown at our officers that did have urine in it. A couple of our officers were hit with that, Evans said. They were hit with a lot of stuff today.

The use of urine appears to be a trademark tactic of self-described anti-fascist demonstrators.

Antifabrought urine-filled projectiles to the violent clashes between white nationalists and antifa in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. Journalists were among those hit with urine.

Two of my producers just got sprayed with urine, CBS News Katie Couric wrote on Twitter. Lovely. Hard to keep your cool.

Couric didnt name which side the pee culprits were on, but reporters with The Daily Caller News Foundation witnessed far-left demonstrators launching urine-filled balloons at white nationalists.

As this past weekends events in Boston showed, its not just suspected white nationalists who get hit with urine.

Left-wing counter-protesters at a June 4 free speech rally in Portland, Oregon launched balloons filled with human urine and feces at the free speech rally-goers, the city police chief recounted in a letter to Portlands mayor.

The decision to move the group located in Chapman Square was made after [Portland police] had repeatedly observed objects being thrown and shot from slingshot type devices from Chapman Square into Terry Shrunk Plaza, Chief of Police Michael Marshman wrote.(He noted earlier in the letter that Chapman Square was the site of one of the counter protests, while Terry Shrunk Plaza was the location of the free speech rally.)

Local news coverage described the urine-flinging counter-protesters as antifa members. (RELATED:Leader Of Portland Anti-Trump Protests Charged With Sexually Abusing Minor)

Right-wing YouTuber and activist Lauren Southern says shes been doused with urine by antifa on multiple occasions, including one occasion where she says the bottle was labeled as fox urine.

Popular antifa website Its Going Down confirmed that anti-fascists have hit Southern with some form of urine at least once.

An article posted on the website in April stated that anti-fascists threw urine on her when she came out to defend an American Front meeting that was happening. (RELATED:In Their Own Words: The Radical Political Goals Of Anti-Fascists)

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said attendees at a speech he was going to giveat the University of California, Davis in January were also hit with urine.

After protesters forced the speechs cancellation due to safety concerns, Yiannopouloswrote on Facebook that guests were sprayed with urine and had bags of feces thrown at them by left-wing thugs.

The university stated that police were unable to confirm that protesters were throwing urine and feces at attendees although multiple news outlets reported guests saying that urine was, indeed, thrown at them.

One of the great gifts the British writer George Orwell gave us, in addition to his classics 1984 and Animal Farm, was a clear and uncompromising look at dangerous ideologies. In Orwell and the British Left, British writer Ian Williams recalls Orwells underlining of the old, true and unpalatable conclusion that a Communist and a Fascist are somewhat nearer to one another than either is to a democrat. Orwells well-observed conclusion nonetheless scandalized many on the left who rallied behind the Marxist phrase no enemies on the left.

Sadly, a quarter century after the fall of Communism, too many leftists are still ignoring Orwell and refusing to acknowledge the reality of left-wing brutality. In the wake of Charlottesville, eyewitnesses and reporters agreed that while the violence was instigated by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, it was countered with bloody counterattacks by left-wingers and black-shirted anarchists wearing masks. There was a clear asymmetric outcome to the violence: A white nationalist mowed down protestors with his car, killing a 32-year-old woman.

But that didnt mean there were no victims of left-wing violence. Antifa short for anti-fascist protestors came armed with pepper spray, bricks, and clubs. Antifa members believe that racist speech is violence and that they must counter it physically, not just oppose it with rhetoric or better ideas.

As the New York Daily News reported, among antifas victims were journalists:

Taylor Lorenz of The Hill was punched in the face by an antifa for recording a fight between the two groups; she tweeted that her assaulter told her not to snitch, media bitch. A videographer from Richmonds WTVR covering a counter-protest got a concussion from head blows with a stick.

In addition, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times tweeted from Charlottesville:

The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding antifa beating white nationalists being led out of the park.

Nor is Charlottesville the only place that antifa activists have crossed the line. Peter Beinart has a piece in this months Atlantic magazine noting that rioting by antifa forces forced University of California at Berkeley officials to cancel speeches by Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopolous earlier this year.

In April, threats by antifa supporters convinced the Portland, Ore., police department that they couldnt guarantee security for the annual Rose Festival parade. The parades sin? Allowing the local Republican party to have Trump supporters march under the GOP banner in the parade. The parade was canceled, to the delight of many in the hob-nailed boot Left that makes Portland, well, such a special place.

But most of this has been swiftly swept under the rug or underreported by liberals and much of the mainstream media. On Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held its monthly meeting in Washington. A liberal member introduced a stirring denunciation of the Nazi, KKK and white-nationalist participants in the Charlottesville rally.

But then Commission member Gail Heriot introduced an amendment that would have added the following:

Though we support peaceful protest and note that most of the counter-demonstrators were peaceful, we condemn violence by anyone, including violence by so-called antifa demonstrators.

Heriot, an independent, was supported in her amendment by Peter Kirsanow, a Republican appointee and African American from Cleveland. But they received no other support from the five commission members appointed by Democrats. Chairwoman Catherine Lhamon complained that Heriots amendment would water down the main resolution, when all it did was make clear that the commission wished to condemn violence of any kind.

Karen Narasaki, another commission member, scoffed at Heriots reading of Stolbergs New York Times observation about the antifa activists in Charlottesville. As she voted against Heriots amendment, she noted, You cant believe everything you read in the media. Apparently, the paper of record for so many liberals is to be considered bird-cage lining material if it contradicts the left-wing narrative. Heriots amendment was voted down 62. The original resolution was approved unanimously, as recorded in the Statement on Charlottesville, Virginia, that the commissioners did adopt.

Its pathetic that the dogma of no enemies on the left so clouds the judgment of the commission set up to protect civil rights.

Some clear-minded experts on extremist violence harbor no such ideological blinkers. Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, categorically told CNN last week:

There is violence on the left. The anti-fascists engage with those they oppose through physical confrontation. And that is a problem. That is an extremists tactic. There is also bigotry on the left.

I would only add that if George Orwell were with us today, he would probably say that there is willful blindness on the left.

A group of antifascist protesters armed with purple shields and bats showed up to the Wednesday funeral of a woman mowed down by a white supremacist who struck her with a vehicle.

Antifa, a collection of left-wing protesters, decided to crash the funeral of Heather Heyer, a white woman who died after a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters during a white nationalist riot.

The antifascist activists claimed they showed up armed because the police wont protect the people, according to a reporter on the scene.

Heyer died during a white supremacist rally over the potential removal of a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. The rally broke out into violence between armed white nationalists and antifa protesters throwing balloons filled with ink and urine and bricks at the white nationalists gathered there.

The line to enter Heyers funeral, hosted at the Paramount theater in Charlottesville, reached two blocks.

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Fighting Nazis is a good thing, but fighting Nazis doesnt necessarily make you or your cause good. By my lights this is simply an obvious fact.

The greatest Nazi-killer of the 20th century was Josef Stalin. He also killed millions of his own people and terrorized, oppressed, enslaved or brutalized tens of millions more. The fact that he killed Nazis during World War II (out of self-preservation, not principle) doesnt dilute his evil one bit.

This should settle the issue as far as Im concerned. Nazism was evil. Soviet communism was evil. Its fine to believe that Nazism was more evil than communism. That doesnt make communism good.

Alas, it doesnt settle the issue. Confusion on this point poisoned politics in America and abroad for generations.

Part of the problem is psychological. Theres a natural tendency to think that when people, or movements, hate each other, it must be because theyre opposites. This assumption overlooks the fact that many indeed, most of the great conflicts and hatreds in human history are derived from what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of minor differences.

Most tribal hatreds are between very similar groups. The European wars of religion were between peoples who often shared the same language and culture but differed on the correct way to practice the Christian faith. The Sunni-Shia split in the Muslim world is the source of great animosity between very similar peoples.

The young communists and fascists fighting for power in the streets of 1920s Germany had far more in common with each other than they had with decent liberals or conservatives, as we understand those terms today. Thats always true of violent radicals and would-be totalitarians.

The second part of the problem wasnt innocent confusion, but sinister propaganda. As Hitler solidified power and effectively outlawed the Communist Party of Germany, The Communist International (Comintern) abandoned its position that socialist and progressive groups that were disloyal to Moscow were fascist and instead encouraged communists everywhere to build popular fronts against the common enemy of Nazism.

These alliances of convenience with social democrats and other progressives were a great propaganda victory for communists around the world because they bolstered the myth that communists were just members of the left coalition in the fight against Hitler, bigotry, fascism, etc.

This obscured the fact that whenever the communists had a chance to seize power, they did so. And often, the first people they killed, jailed or exiled were their former allies. Thats what happened in Eastern Europe, Cuba and other places where communists succeeded in taking over the government.

If you havent figured it out yet, this seemingly ancient history is relevant today because of the depressingly idiotic argument about whether its OK to equate antifa antifascist left-wing radicals with the neo-Nazi and white supremacist rabble that recently descended on Charlottesville, Va. The president wants to claim that there were very fine people on both sides of the protest and that the antifascist radicals are equally blameworthy. He borrowed from Fox News Channels Sean Hannity the bogus term alt-left to describe the antifa radicals.

The term is bogus for the simple reason that, unlike the alt-right, nobody calls themselves the alt-left. And thats too bad. One of the only nice things about the alt-right is that its leaders are honest about the fact that they want nothing to do with traditional American conservatism. Like the original Nazis, they seek to replace the traditional right with their racial hogwash.

The antifa crowd has a very similar agenda with regard to traditional American liberalism. These goons and thugs oppose free speech, celebrate violence, despise dissent and have little use for anything else in the American political tradition. But many liberals, particularly in the media, are victims of the same kind of confusion that vexed so much of American liberalism in the 20th century. Because antifa suddenly has the (alt-)right enemies, they must be the good guys. Theyre not.

And thats why this debate is so toxically stupid. Fine, antifa isnt as bad as the KKK. Who cares? Since when is being less bad than the Klan a major moral accomplishment?

In these tribal times, the impulse to support anyone who shares your enemies is powerful. But it is a morally stunted reflex. This is America. Youre free to denounce totalitarians wherever you find them even if they might hate the right people.

2017 Tribune Content Agency LLC

Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. Email: goldbergcolumn@gmail.com Twitter: @JonahNRO

CNN, you almost did a great thing. In fact, the article you published about the violent Antifa movement was not bad. You showed how they view police as the enemy; how the groups far left views on pretty much everything is way outside the mainstream, and how theyre lawless. Even those who are studying extremist groups in the country note that the violent course Antifa takes will ultimately kill the movement. Yet, it seems the news network caved to Antifas complaining over their original headline: Unmasking the leftist Antifa movement: Activists seek peace through violence to unmasking the leftist Antifa movement. The editors note reads, This story has been updated to clarify that counterprotesters say they are not to blame for violence at the Charlottesville protest. The story’s headline has also been updated.

What happened in Charlottesville was a disgrace. Both white nationalists and Antifa showed up, melees broke out, and one woman died when a white nationalist plowed through a group of counter demonstrators. Im not saying Antifa isnt violent. They areand CNN did a good job noting this in their story. The problem is that it was a white nationalist who murdered someone. The narrative changes with this incident because, despite the clashes, one side decided to mow people downand it wasnt the far left. Then again, the CNN piece was not really focused on Charlottesville. It was about the movement in general [emphasis mine]:

Anti-fascists and the black bloc tactic originated in Nazi Germany and resurfaced in United Kingdom in the 1980s. Large numbers of Antifa activists first appeared in the United States at anti-World Trade Organization protests in 1999 in Seattle, and then more recently during the Occupy Wall Street movement.

But their profile has been rising.

Antifa demonstrators have marched in more than a half dozen protests since Election Day in Portland, Oregon, according to police.

Earlier this year, Antifa activists were among those who smashed windows and set fires during protests at the University of California, Berkeley, leading to the cancellation of far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and withdrawal of Ann Coulter as speakers.

[]

For almost three decades, Scott Crow was part of the Antifa movement.

“I fought (against) Nazis. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had guns drawn on me. I’ve drawn guns on fascists. I’ve been in altercations. I’ve smoke-bombed places,” he said. “I’ve done a myriad of things to try and stop fascism and its flow over the years.”

Activists don black bloc, Crow said, as a means to an end.

“People put on the masks so that we can all become anonymous, right? And then, therefore, we are able to move more freely and do what we need to do, whether it is illegal or not,” he said.

And that means avoiding police, whom many Antifa members see as an enemy, as well as skirting the scrutiny Antifa activists often get from alt-right trolls on the Internet. Black bloc, one member told us, also unites the movement.

[]

Antifa activists often don’t hesitate to destroy property, which many see as the incarnation of unfair wealth distribution.

“Violence against windows — there’s no such thing as violence against windows,” a masked Antifa member in Union Square told CNN. “Windows don’t have — they’re not persons. And even when they are persons, the people we fight back against, they are evil. They are the living embodiment, they are the second coming of Hitler.”

Crow explained the ideology this way: “Don’t confuse legality and morality. Laws are made of governments, not of men,” echoing the words of John Adams.

“Each of us breaks the law every day. It’s just that we make the conscious choice to do that,” he said.

Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren’t physically attacking them. The movement, Crow said, sees alt-right hate speech as violent, and for that, its activists have opted to meet violence with violence.

Right or wrong, “that’s for history to decide,” he said.

CNN interviewed Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, who said such violence is going to kill Antifa.

It’s [violence] killing the cause — it’s not hurting it, it’s killing it, and it will kill it, he said, noting that such acts, like when Antifa members physically go after neo-Nazi members, gives them moral high ground. These are awful people. Then again, so are the Antifa members.

The moral of the story is that just because Antifa is fighting white nationalist and neo-Nazis, doesnt make them the good guys. Neither side deserves to be defended as a beacon of political discourse or civic engagement. Theyre both despicableand thats what CNN captured in this story thats been diluted in the name of political correctness. You cannot talk about or condemn political extremism without slamming both Antifa and white nationalists. Does a white nationalist murdering someone in Charlottesville change how we should view these two groups? No. Theyre both made up of violent thugs. But in the case of Charlottesville, only one side decided to use a car to achieve a homicidal goal. Thats whats different here, and why so many were not satisfied when Trump blamed both sides for the violence. Theres a difference between a scuffle on a march way and plowing through people with a car.

Yet, it doesnt negate the fact that Antifa are still violent criminals, who shouldnt be martyred or idolized as some anti-Nazi antidote to American political discourse.

You’ve probably heard a slew of radicalizing terms being tossed around the last couple of weeks in an attempt to label the various ideologies we’re seeingin the news.So, whatdoes Antifa believe?Experts interviewed by the New York Times, among others, help explain the roots and the beliefs of the alt-left movement. To back up, last week, President Donald Trump placed blameon the so-called alt-left and its neighbors for the events in Charlottesville as well as the alt-right. There was reportedly alsoa petition to recognize Antifa as a terrorist organization, according to several right-wing outlets. But this is far from a fair (or accurate) parallel. According to the Oxford Dictionary online, Antifa is a shortening for antifascists, which itdefines as, A radical political movement that opposes fascism and other forms of extreme right-wing authoritarianism. Basically, it’s a termassociated with militant anti-racism, anti-white supremacy, anti-fascism, and theirkin. Antifascismhas its roots in pre-WWII Europe, when the trifecta of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco were pushing fascism forward. A battle between British fascists and an opposition forcein 1936 led to a trend of opposition, asTime reported. Many trace theterm Antifa’s coinage back to the 1970s and ’80s duringa resurgence of clashes between fascism and itsopponents in the U.S. and Europe, Mother Jones reports. Whereas many left-leaning people careabout combattingracism, Antifa seems to take that term literally. Writing for The Washington Post, historian Mark Bray explains Antifa as the militant far-left generally made up of communists, socialists, and anarchists who fight the far-right rather than leave the fate of racismup to the state. Above all, Antifa is an ideology dedicated to ousting and fighting white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and fascism, as well asending racism, often through confrontational means. Mark Pitcavage, an analyst for the Anti-Defamation League, told the New York Timesthat the primary goal of Antifa is tophysically confrontand pickfights with their far-rightopponents. Rolling Stonewrites thatAntifa operates in small, purposely fragmented groups or hubs. Mark Bray, also interviewed here, says, [Antifa are] illilberal. They don’t believe in society as a value neutral public sphere where any kind of ideas can just float around. Not really, according to experts interviewed in the New York Times. The size and organization of Antifa members now is much smaller than their fascist opponents, and in general, they tend to be responsible for far less violence.Putting Antifa on the same playing field as neo-Nazism is a false equivalence, the experts explained. (While we’re on the topic of incorrectly drawn parallels,Pitcavage said that alt-left is another false equivalence, and is in fact a made-up term.) This brief, brief summary isn’t all you need to know, but hopefully enough to understand why equivocating Antifa and neo-Nazism leads to so many Twitter wars. Subscribe to Elite Daily’s official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don’t want to miss. Hannah is a news writer for Elite Daily, a sitcom aficionado and a firm believer in the powers of coffee and chocolate.

So, Boston Antifa threw rocks, hurled bottles, and splashed urine on police. The protests turned violent. That is a fact; Guy has a post on it here. Yet, to fully show how unhinged this movement is, just take a look at one of their Facebook pages. Lets take a look at the Boston Antifa page since theyre probably going to be the flavor of the week. Apparently, any person who is not like them isnt allowed in Boston. There is no room for capitalists, conservatives, libertarians, “classical liberals” or supporters of the US constitution in our city. You MUST leave. Antifa wants supporters of the Constitution and classical liberals out of the city; thats like everyone. So, they fight the Ku Klux Klan, but they have the same ethos regarding who is allowed to stay and who needs to go. Also, who the hell do they think they are? Oh, and over the weekend, the great comedian Jerry Lewis of The Nutty Professor, The Bellboy, and Whos Minding The Store? passed away at the age of 91. To go back even further, theres the string of films he did with the late Dean Martin when the two were a comedy act. He was a renowned comedian, some might have found his slapstick a bit much, but he was a talented performer who also raised money and awareness for muscular dystrophy. Well, to these far left bullies, hes an evil man who embraced white supremacy. Im not kidding: The lonely comedian behind his facade was a man who harbored a lot of misplaced hate and his career is nothing to idolize. Jerry Lewis embraced the power of white supremacy throughout his career. People who found comedy in his “jokes” and characters portraying POC stereotypes are as much to blame for why we continue to deal with this situation in 2017. Unsafe humor, as well as many problematic comics of today who were inspired from Jerry (Gilbert Gottfried for example), should be given no further platform and no praise. Let the memory of an old bigot like Jerry fade away forever. Do they fight Nazis, white nationalists, and the KKK? Yes, but that doesnt mean theyre the good guys.

Even those who despise neo-Nazis are worried about the rise of the antifa, the masked protesters whose stock rose after they took on white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The antifa, which stands for anti-fascists, may be the sworn enemies of Nazism and racism, but the radical left-wing protesters also arent fans of the First Amendment, having shut down scheduled speeches by conservatives Milo Yiannapoulos and Ann Coulter earlier this year in Berkeley, California. Thats by design. The guiding principle behind the movement, which has its roots in prewar Europe, is to defeat fascists before they can gain a foothold in government and society in order to avoid another Nazi Germany. If that means using threats, intimidation and even violence to muzzle so-called fascists, then so be it, said Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which is scheduled for release Sept. 12. Antifa are anarchists and communists and socialists who are revolutionaries and dont have any inherent regard for the law, said Mr. Bray, a visiting scholar at the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth College. To try to put it within that framework is kind of missing the fact that they dont really care. He pointed to the millions of deaths throughout history from fascist groups, saying that members of antifa consider their efforts to be self-defense against Nazis. Critics of antifa describe the movement as fascist in its own right given its disregard for the First Amendment and willingness to use mobs and the hecklers veto to shush dissenting voices. It is important for the public to understand that the so-called antifa are not well-intentioned bystanders engaged in civil discourse, but armed thugs intent on silencing their opponents, said Mark Pulliam, a lawyer and contributor to conservative publications. The First Amendment was intended to protect debate and the free market of ideas, not to give a weapon to one side to suppress the other. Even Richard Cohen, president of the liberal Southern Poverty Law Center, which routinely lists mainstream conservative groups alongside the Ku Klux Klan on its hate map, has raised alarm about the antifa. I think its a spectacularly bad idea to give one group of people the right to silence another group of people, Mr. Cohen said Sunday on Meet the Press. Its contrary to our values embodied in the First Amendment. Its likely to drive the people they are trying to censor underground, where they may resort to illegal means to express themselves like bombs. In the wake of World War II, however, Mr. Bray said one of the lessons was that fascists could have been stopped if more people had resisted them early on. The anti-fascist side is to look at how it was that fascist and Nazi groups gained power back in the 20s and 30s, and one of the lessons theyve taken out of it is that a lot of people werent sufficiently alarmed early enough they werent taken seriously enough until it was too late, Mr. Bray said. And so the argument [is] that you dont let them take that first step toward being normalized. You also dont have to be a card-carrying Nazi to be considered a fascist. Anyone who falls to the right of the political spectrum is apparently fair game, including the Multnomah County Republican Party, which was threatened by antifa rioting that ultimately forced the cancellation of the annual rose parade in April. Anti-fascists arent only against fascists, Mr. Bray said. Theyre basically against the far right in general. Does the antifa consider President Trump a fascist? Some would say yes and some would say no, but there is a sort of broad agreement that he enables them [fascists], and that he has fascistic qualities, Mr. Bray said. And he definitely does, from my perspective, have fascistic qualities, even though I wouldnt consider him a fascist in the full sense, he said. What about Hillary Clinton? Theyre opposed to her, too. But its not like they apply the same tactics to a Democratic Party event as they would to a Traditionalist Worker Party event, which is a fascist group, Mr. Bray said. A former Occupy Wall Street organizer, Mr. Bray said he isnt part of the antifa movement, but he was able to conduct extensive interviews with anonymous antifa activists by agreeing to speak to them by phone or on encrypted message boards. The only reason I managed to get any interviews is I have a lot of connections through doing left-radical work for 15 years, and even with that, there are groups where no one would talk to me because theres a high level of paranoia about law enforcement and fascist backlash, he said. They just dont want information out there that can be used against them or [to uncover] their identity. Antifa protesters resist being interviewed during protests, avoiding or ignoring reporters who try to interview them. One antifa activist was accused of punching Taylor Lorenz, a reporter for The Hill newspaper, during the Charlottesville melee after she refused to stop recording the event. David Horowitz, conservative author and expert on left-wing movements, said one problem with the reasoning behind antifa is that actual American fascists such as neo-Nazis are negligible, irrelevant groups on the political scene whose membership has been in decline for years. In Charlottesville more than 1,000 protesters, including the antifa, turned out to counter a Unite the Right crowd estimated at 250 to 500. The antifa is a real threat. This alt-right crap at a national gathering they had 500 people. Thats nothing. Its laughable, Mr. Horowitz said. Its a bogeyman invented by the left to justify its anti-democratic agenda. And people are too intimidated. The problem, Mr. Bray said, is that sometimes fascists dont always disappear. Certainly you can ignore them, and sometimes they go away, but the fact that sometimes they dont is the concern, he said, citing the recent rise of fascism in Greece. Certainly the antifa won the public relations battle in Charlottesville. Not only was an alleged neo-Nazi arrested for driving into a crowd, killing a woman and injuring at least 19, but prominent left-wing academic Cornel West later credited the antifa with saving him and others. The police, for the most part, pulled back, Mr. West told Democracy Now! The next day, for example, those 20 of us who were standing, many of them clergy, we would have been crushed like cockroaches if it were not for the anarchists and the anti-fascists who approached over 300, 350 anti-fascists. We just had 20. After Charlottesville, Mr. Bray said, the threat that fascists and neo-Nazis pose is a lot more evident to people than it was previously, albeit for tragic reasons. I think people are really mad and frustrated and more sympathetic toward these confrontational tactics and dealing with them [fascists], Mr. Bray said, so I think, in that sense, its opened more space for people to consider it or at least understand it. Mr. Horowitz warned people to beware the antifa movement. They are the fascists. What other group in America is running around trying to shut down people from speaking by violent methods and defaming them at the same time? he asked. Thats what fascism is.

‘Antifa’ Group to Train for Clashes With White Nationalists in Trump’s ‘AmeriKKKa’ Antifa Website Calls for Violence Against Trump Supporters A petition to label the anti-Trump group “Antifa” a terrorist organization sped past the requirement of 100,000 signatures needed to get a response from the White House. The petitionsays Antifa’s “violent actions in multiple cities and their influence in the killings of multiple police officers throughout the United States” earns it the terrorist designation. “It is time for the pentagon to be consistent in its actions,” the petition reads. “Just as they rightfully declared ISIS a terror group, they must declare AntiFa a terror group on the grounds of principle, integrity, morality, and safety.” Democrat Fundraising Is Worst in a Decade Watters: Destroying Historical Monuments Is What the Taliban Does The petition was started Thursday and by Monday morning the petition had garnered over 146,000 signatures. Antifa has embraced violence as part of their protests of the Trump administration and conservative principles. On President Trump’s inauguration day in Washington, D.C., Antifa protesters ransacked the city, smashing windows and setting cars on fire. Malkin: History Whitewashers Want to Eradicate Country’s Roots ‘Warts and All’ Anti-Fascist Stabs Innocent Man Over ‘Neo-Nazi’ Haircut Author Says Antifa Should Be Listed As a Domestic Terror Group

In their efforts to drive political opponents from the public square, self-described anti-fascists (or antifa) are utilizing a disgusting and degrading weapon: human urine. In just the latest instance of weaponized urine, counter-protesters demonstrating against a free speech rally in Boston on Saturday flung urine-filled bottles at police officers trying to maintain order amidst an already tense political climate. The Boston Police Department sent out a message on Twitter urging demonstrators not to assault officers with urine, but its unclear if it had any effect. Boston Police Commissioner William Evans stated at a press conference later that day that protesters successfully hit officers with their urine-filled projectiles. Im sorry to report that we did have some bottles thrown at our officers that did have urine in it. A couple of our officers were hit with that, Evans said. They were hit with a lot of stuff today. The use of urine appears to be a trademark tactic of self-described anti-fascist demonstrators. Antifabrought urine-filled projectiles to the violent clashes between white nationalists and antifa in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this month. Journalists were among those hit with urine. Two of my producers just got sprayed with urine, CBS News Katie Couric wrote on Twitter. Lovely. Hard to keep your cool. Couric didnt name which side the pee culprits were on, but reporters with The Daily Caller News Foundation witnessed far-left demonstrators launching urine-filled balloons at white nationalists. As this past weekends events in Boston showed, its not just suspected white nationalists who get hit with urine. Left-wing counter-protesters at a June 4 free speech rally in Portland, Oregon launched balloons filled with human urine and feces at the free speech rally-goers, the city police chief recounted in a letter to Portlands mayor. The decision to move the group located in Chapman Square was made after [Portland police] had repeatedly observed objects being thrown and shot from slingshot type devices from Chapman Square into Terry Shrunk Plaza, Chief of Police Michael Marshman wrote.(He noted earlier in the letter that Chapman Square was the site of one of the counter protests, while Terry Shrunk Plaza was the location of the free speech rally.) These objects included urine and feces filled balloons, balloons with unknown chemicals, marbles, bricks and rocks, Marshman wrote. Local news coverage described the urine-flinging counter-protesters as antifa members. (RELATED:Leader Of Portland Anti-Trump Protests Charged With Sexually Abusing Minor) Right-wing YouTuber and activist Lauren Southern says shes been doused with urine by antifa on multiple occasions, including one occasion where she says the bottle was labeled as fox urine. Popular antifa website Its Going Down confirmed that anti-fascists have hit Southern with some form of urine at least once. An article posted on the website in April stated that anti-fascists threw urine on her when she came out to defend an American Front meeting that was happening. (RELATED:In Their Own Words: The Radical Political Goals Of Anti-Fascists) Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos said attendees at a speech he was going to giveat the University of California, Davis in January were also hit with urine. After protesters forced the speechs cancellation due to safety concerns, Yiannopouloswrote on Facebook that guests were sprayed with urine and had bags of feces thrown at them by left-wing thugs. The university stated that police were unable to confirm that protesters were throwing urine and feces at attendees although multiple news outlets reported guests saying that urine was, indeed, thrown at them.

One of the great gifts the British writer George Orwell gave us, in addition to his classics 1984 and Animal Farm, was a clear and uncompromising look at dangerous ideologies. In Orwell and the British Left, British writer Ian Williams recalls Orwells underlining of the old, true and unpalatable conclusion that a Communist and a Fascist are somewhat nearer to one another than either is to a democrat. Orwells well-observed conclusion nonetheless scandalized many on the left who rallied behind the Marxist phrase no enemies on the left. Sadly, a quarter century after the fall of Communism, too many leftists are still ignoring Orwell and refusing to acknowledge the reality of left-wing brutality. In the wake of Charlottesville, eyewitnesses and reporters agreed that while the violence was instigated by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, it was countered with bloody counterattacks by left-wingers and black-shirted anarchists wearing masks. There was a clear asymmetric outcome to the violence: A white nationalist mowed down protestors with his car, killing a 32-year-old woman. But that didnt mean there were no victims of left-wing violence. Antifa short for anti-fascist protestors came armed with pepper spray, bricks, and clubs. Antifa members believe that racist speech is violence and that they must counter it physically, not just oppose it with rhetoric or better ideas. As the New York Daily News reported, among antifas victims were journalists: Taylor Lorenz of The Hill was punched in the face by an antifa for recording a fight between the two groups; she tweeted that her assaulter told her not to snitch, media bitch. A videographer from Richmonds WTVR covering a counter-protest got a concussion from head blows with a stick. In addition, Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times tweeted from Charlottesville: The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding antifa beating white nationalists being led out of the park. Nor is Charlottesville the only place that antifa activists have crossed the line. Peter Beinart has a piece in this months Atlantic magazine noting that rioting by antifa forces forced University of California at Berkeley officials to cancel speeches by Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopolous earlier this year. In April, threats by antifa supporters convinced the Portland, Ore., police department that they couldnt guarantee security for the annual Rose Festival parade. The parades sin? Allowing the local Republican party to have Trump supporters march under the GOP banner in the parade. The parade was canceled, to the delight of many in the hob-nailed boot Left that makes Portland, well, such a special place. But most of this has been swiftly swept under the rug or underreported by liberals and much of the mainstream media. On Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held its monthly meeting in Washington. A liberal member introduced a stirring denunciation of the Nazi, KKK and white-nationalist participants in the Charlottesville rally. But then Commission member Gail Heriot introduced an amendment that would have added the following: Though we support peaceful protest and note that most of the counter-demonstrators were peaceful, we condemn violence by anyone, including violence by so-called antifa demonstrators. Heriot, an independent, was supported in her amendment by Peter Kirsanow, a Republican appointee and African American from Cleveland. But they received no other support from the five commission members appointed by Democrats. Chairwoman Catherine Lhamon complained that Heriots amendment would water down the main resolution, when all it did was make clear that the commission wished to condemn violence of any kind. Karen Narasaki, another commission member, scoffed at Heriots reading of Stolbergs New York Times observation about the antifa activists in Charlottesville. As she voted against Heriots amendment, she noted, You cant believe everything you read in the media. Apparently, the paper of record for so many liberals is to be considered bird-cage lining material if it contradicts the left-wing narrative. Heriots amendment was voted down 62. The original resolution was approved unanimously, as recorded in the Statement on Charlottesville, Virginia, that the commissioners did adopt. Its pathetic that the dogma of no enemies on the left so clouds the judgment of the commission set up to protect civil rights. Some clear-minded experts on extremist violence harbor no such ideological blinkers. Oren Segal, the director of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, categorically told CNN last week: There is violence on the left. The anti-fascists engage with those they oppose through physical confrontation. And that is a problem. That is an extremists tactic. There is also bigotry on the left. I would only add that if George Orwell were with us today, he would probably say that there is willful blindness on the left. John Fund is NROs national-affairs correspondent.

A group of antifascist protesters armed with purple shields and bats showed up to the Wednesday funeral of a woman mowed down by a white supremacist who struck her with a vehicle. Antifa, a collection of left-wing protesters, decided to crash the funeral of Heather Heyer, a white woman who died after a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of protesters during a white nationalist riot. The antifascist activists claimed they showed up armed because the police wont protect the people, according to a reporter on the scene. Heyer died during a white supremacist rally over the potential removal of a Confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. The rally broke out into violence between armed white nationalists and antifa protesters throwing balloons filled with ink and urine and bricks at the white nationalists gathered there. The line to enter Heyers funeral, hosted at the Paramount theater in Charlottesville, reached two blocks. Follow Amber on Twitter Send tips to [emailprotected]. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [emailprotected].

Fighting Nazis is a good thing, but fighting Nazis doesnt necessarily make you or your cause good. By my lights this is simply an obvious fact. The greatest Nazi-killer of the 20th century was Josef Stalin. He also killed millions of his own people and terrorized, oppressed, enslaved or brutalized tens of millions more. The fact that he killed Nazis during World War II (out of self-preservation, not principle) doesnt dilute his evil one bit. This should settle the issue as far as Im concerned. Nazism was evil. Soviet communism was evil. Its fine to believe that Nazism was more evil than communism. That doesnt make communism good. Alas, it doesnt settle the issue. Confusion on this point poisoned politics in America and abroad for generations. Part of the problem is psychological. Theres a natural tendency to think that when people, or movements, hate each other, it must be because theyre opposites. This assumption overlooks the fact that many indeed, most of the great conflicts and hatreds in human history are derived from what Sigmund Freud called the narcissism of minor differences. Most tribal hatreds are between very similar groups. The European wars of religion were between peoples who often shared the same language and culture but differed on the correct way to practice the Christian faith. The Sunni-Shia split in the Muslim world is the source of great animosity between very similar peoples. The young communists and fascists fighting for power in the streets of 1920s Germany had far more in common with each other than they had with decent liberals or conservatives, as we understand those terms today. Thats always true of violent radicals and would-be totalitarians. The second part of the problem wasnt innocent confusion, but sinister propaganda. As Hitler solidified power and effectively outlawed the Communist Party of Germany, The Communist International (Comintern) abandoned its position that socialist and progressive groups that were disloyal to Moscow were fascist and instead encouraged communists everywhere to build popular fronts against the common enemy of Nazism. These alliances of convenience with social democrats and other progressives were a great propaganda victory for communists around the world because they bolstered the myth that communists were just members of the left coalition in the fight against Hitler, bigotry, fascism, etc. This obscured the fact that whenever the communists had a chance to seize power, they did so. And often, the first people they killed, jailed or exiled were their former allies. Thats what happened in Eastern Europe, Cuba and other places where communists succeeded in taking over the government. If you havent figured it out yet, this seemingly ancient history is relevant today because of the depressingly idiotic argument about whether its OK to equate antifa antifascist left-wing radicals with the neo-Nazi and white supremacist rabble that recently descended on Charlottesville, Va. The president wants to claim that there were very fine people on both sides of the protest and that the antifascist radicals are equally blameworthy. He borrowed from Fox News Channels Sean Hannity the bogus term alt-left to describe the antifa radicals. The term is bogus for the simple reason that, unlike the alt-right, nobody calls themselves the alt-left. And thats too bad. One of the only nice things about the alt-right is that its leaders are honest about the fact that they want nothing to do with traditional American conservatism. Like the original Nazis, they seek to replace the traditional right with their racial hogwash. The antifa crowd has a very similar agenda with regard to traditional American liberalism. These goons and thugs oppose free speech, celebrate violence, despise dissent and have little use for anything else in the American political tradition. But many liberals, particularly in the media, are victims of the same kind of confusion that vexed so much of American liberalism in the 20th century. Because antifa suddenly has the (alt-)right enemies, they must be the good guys. Theyre not. And thats why this debate is so toxically stupid. Fine, antifa isnt as bad as the KKK. Who cares? Since when is being less bad than the Klan a major moral accomplishment? In these tribal times, the impulse to support anyone who shares your enemies is powerful. But it is a morally stunted reflex. This is America. Youre free to denounce totalitarians wherever you find them even if they might hate the right people. 2017 Tribune Content Agency LLC Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review. Email: goldbergcolumn@gmail.com Twitter: @JonahNRO

CNN, you almost did a great thing. In fact, the article you published about the violent Antifa movement was not bad. You showed how they view police as the enemy; how the groups far left views on pretty much everything is way outside the mainstream, and how theyre lawless. Even those who are studying extremist groups in the country note that the violent course Antifa takes will ultimately kill the movement. Yet, it seems the news network caved to Antifas complaining over their original headline: Unmasking the leftist Antifa movement: Activists seek peace through violence to unmasking the leftist Antifa movement. The editors note reads, This story has been updated to clarify that counterprotesters say they are not to blame for violence at the Charlottesville protest. The story’s headline has also been updated. What happened in Charlottesville was a disgrace. Both white nationalists and Antifa showed up, melees broke out, and one woman died when a white nationalist plowed through a group of counter demonstrators. Im not saying Antifa isnt violent. They areand CNN did a good job noting this in their story. The problem is that it was a white nationalist who murdered someone. The narrative changes with this incident because, despite the clashes, one side decided to mow people downand it wasnt the far left. Then again, the CNN piece was not really focused on Charlottesville. It was about the movement in general [emphasis mine]: Anti-fascists and the black bloc tactic originated in Nazi Germany and resurfaced in United Kingdom in the 1980s. Large numbers of Antifa activists first appeared in the United States at anti-World Trade Organization protests in 1999 in Seattle, and then more recently during the Occupy Wall Street movement. But their profile has been rising. Antifa demonstrators have marched in more than a half dozen protests since Election Day in Portland, Oregon, according to police. Earlier this year, Antifa activists were among those who smashed windows and set fires during protests at the University of California, Berkeley, leading to the cancellation of far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and withdrawal of Ann Coulter as speakers. [] For almost three decades, Scott Crow was part of the Antifa movement. “I fought (against) Nazis. I’ve had death threats. I’ve had guns drawn on me. I’ve drawn guns on fascists. I’ve been in altercations. I’ve smoke-bombed places,” he said. “I’ve done a myriad of things to try and stop fascism and its flow over the years.” Activists don black bloc, Crow said, as a means to an end. “People put on the masks so that we can all become anonymous, right? And then, therefore, we are able to move more freely and do what we need to do, whether it is illegal or not,” he said. And that means avoiding police, whom many Antifa members see as an enemy, as well as skirting the scrutiny Antifa activists often get from alt-right trolls on the Internet. Black bloc, one member told us, also unites the movement. [] Antifa activists often don’t hesitate to destroy property, which many see as the incarnation of unfair wealth distribution. “Violence against windows — there’s no such thing as violence against windows,” a masked Antifa member in Union Square told CNN. “Windows don’t have — they’re not persons. And even when they are persons, the people we fight back against, they are evil. They are the living embodiment, they are the second coming of Hitler.” Crow explained the ideology this way: “Don’t confuse legality and morality. Laws are made of governments, not of men,” echoing the words of John Adams. “Each of us breaks the law every day. It’s just that we make the conscious choice to do that,” he said. Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren’t physically attacking them. The movement, Crow said, sees alt-right hate speech as violent, and for that, its activists have opted to meet violence with violence. Right or wrong, “that’s for history to decide,” he said. CNN interviewed Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, who said such violence is going to kill Antifa. It’s [violence] killing the cause — it’s not hurting it, it’s killing it, and it will kill it, he said, noting that such acts, like when Antifa members physically go after neo-Nazi members, gives them moral high ground. These are awful people. Then again, so are the Antifa members. The moral of the story is that just because Antifa is fighting white nationalist and neo-Nazis, doesnt make them the good guys. Neither side deserves to be defended as a beacon of political discourse or civic engagement. Theyre both despicableand thats what CNN captured in this story thats been diluted in the name of political correctness. You cannot talk about or condemn political extremism without slamming both Antifa and white nationalists. Does a white nationalist murdering someone in Charlottesville change how we should view these two groups? No. Theyre both made up of violent thugs. But in the case of Charlottesville, only one side decided to use a car to achieve a homicidal goal. Thats whats different here, and why so many were not satisfied when Trump blamed both sides for the violence. Theres a difference between a scuffle on a march way and plowing through people with a car. Yet, it doesnt negate the fact that Antifa are still violent criminals, who shouldnt be martyred or idolized as some anti-Nazi antidote to American political discourse.

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